Justin Vogel 🦁@justinhvogel
Most people think GTM is about marketing
It’s not. GTM is about *product*
It’s the work of figuring out:
👉 Will this product solve a problem for this user, and get them to change behavior?
And this is why so many crypto teams fail to get traction
They start “doing marketing” before they’ve validated whether anyone even wants what they’re creating
Then when adoption doesn’t happen, who gets blamed? The Marketer
But the real issue is that most crypto teams don't have anyone doing this critical work
Look around. There are almost no product managers in crypto
Each team has 10 devs, 1 BD, 1 marketer but no one doing the actual work of defining user segments, validating pain points, or testing value props
So the marketer gets tasked with doing a product job and a marketing job at the same time
And of course it fails. Then the cycle repeats
Good GTM is product work first, marketing second
If you skip the first part, no amount of marketing can save you
Let’s make this real with an example:
You're building a digital collectibles marketplace for Pokémon cards
The vision? "Everyone will buy and sell Pokémon cards here"
Cool. But how do you actually get there?
Start with your users. You're a marketplace—so two sides:
- Collectors (buy for nostalgia)
- Resellers (flip for profit)
Then break that down into four clear segments:
- Web2 Collectors: want physical nostalgia, not tech
- Web3 Collectors: want digital ownership tied to identity
- Web2 Resellers: flip on eBay/StockX, face high fees & logistics
- Web3 Resellers: yield chasers, open to any tradable asset with upside
Each group behaves differently
But good GTM starts narrow: one segment, one value prop, one wedge
Let’s say you choose Web2 resellers
They already sell on StockX—but it’s painful. To sell a card:
1. Ship it to StockX
2. StockX authenticates it and lists it
3. Once it sells, StockX ships it to the buyer
4. If the buyer wants to resell, the process starts over
That’s two shipments and one authentication for every sale.
Slow, expensive, and platforms charge 20%–30% in fees.
Now contrast that with your crypto-native model:
- Ship once, authenticate once
- Tokenize the card as an NFT
- Trade it digitally as many times as you want
- Only ship again when someone wants to redeem the physical item
That’s your wedge: lower fees. instant trades. no repeat logistics.
Now your GTM becomes a product question:
👉 Will web2 resellers change their behavior and use your platform to make more profit with less friction?
If yes, you win unique supply
If not, either the wedge is weak or you picked the wrong segment
Marketing is what you do once you know people want what you're building
And GTM is how you figure out what that is
